Clean and Well Lighted
by Petronia
Summary: Set immediately before "Intermezzo": after his final 'examination' as Schwarz trainee, Schuldich has a conversation with Dr. Seraphita Baez (his medical and recruiting officer and – incidentally – one of Crawford's debriefers).


**Clean and Well-Lighted**

Seraphita waited for him as she'd said, seated at a table for two just inside the glass front of the café and smoking a cigarette. It was dark on the street for lack of cars or neon, and the bright lights within made it look as if she were on display. A langourous warmth had settled on him, and Schuldich waggled his fingers at her from across the street, smiling. She acknowledged him with a flicker of her eyes; another man would likely not have noticed.

/I'm frankly amazed, Doctor/ he sub-vocalized for her as he pushed through the door. A chime tinkled for the waiter's attention. /I thought everything in this damned town battened down after midnight. One of your little secrets/

"I have no secrets from you," Seraphita said in dry tones. "This is a place for locals. Sit down, Schuldich." He sat, turning the wrought-iron chaise around and straddling the seat, leaning his arms on the ornate arc of the back.

"Giving yourself away, Doctor..."

"I obtained my M.D. at the university here. You can read as much on my unclassified profile." There was a pause, and he almost thought she would ask how it had gone, but needless to say she didn't. His presence signified enough. Others would move in later on, discreetly, within the police and the government and the media, and there were guidelines to begin with. There would only have to be a cover-up if he had messed up badly, and he wouldn't be in a position to see it. That was only fair.

He didn't like it. But he was used to the constant chafing now, and compared to all they'd given him (and taken away), it was a tiny thing.

_None know that I carry this mark, and yet it was among men I was born, and among men my mother died—_

The warmth was in his spine, loosening his shoulders and pressing on his diaphragm. He wondered if it was something Seraphita could sense; perhaps it was, for she raised two fingers to the waiter who'd approached, and the man nodded, turning back to the bar at the other end. Schuldich grinned lazily, watching him. One of those who thought of nothing much at all, except the tab and the lateness of the hour and the shadow of the leaves outside against the dim streetlamps. Quiet just like the café. They were the only ones there. Really, it was a pleasant place.

"I have a present for you," Seraphita said. Schuldich raised his eyebrows in mocking surprise, which she ignored. "Several, actually, commencing with the files relative to your next mission—" This was an unmarked manila folder brief. Schuldich wrinkled his nose and left it lying on the table. "—Or more precisely, your next assignment. The mission itself is to be considered a first exercise of said post. I assume you have been briefed to some extent?"

"Barely." All had been pending the final 'score' tonight. Pass/Fail, and he'd passed. "Somewhere within the EU – that's what I was told."

"Japan," Seraphita said. "But that's just the mission. You'll soon be back. I'd expect significant opportunities for travel, if I were you."

The waiter arrived and set two sherry glasses before them, which he proceeded to fill. The liquid was fiercely tawny, nearly amber. "What is this?" Schuldich asked.

"Oloroso. Ten years old. It's what I like to have, here." Seraphita cupped the glass in her hand, rotating the liquid pensively. "So," she said after a moment. "No details. You know you'll be working with a team leader?"

Schuldich shrugged. He hadn't known. It was news, not necessarily welcome.

"Barely meaning none," Seraphita said. She tossed down half the contents of her glass at one go, wincing slightly. She was hesitating, Schuldich thought. It was unlike her.

"Who is it?" he asked, and then he knew. Of a sudden like that, without needing the confirmation of words. But she spoke anyway.

"Brad Crawford," she said. "Captain. Schwarz-neunzehn commanding officer."

There was a long silence. Schuldich kept his hands loose and relaxed on the back of his chair, and wondered what reaction Seraphita expected. If she had expectations at all. Empathic Control drained the emotions, shut them away, but perhaps there was a base level of scientific interest...

"And what the fuck was that supposed to be," he said tonelessly, "Present Number Two?"

"Is that how you think of it?" Seraphita asked. That dispassionate medical-voice, as if she didn't know already. As if she didn't know better than he did. He clamped down on the sudden upsurge of anger. Not tonight, of all nights. Not in front of the good Doctor.

"I don't get it," he said. "Why would they do this?"

She shrugged. "There's been some re-evaluation of the Schwarz units. Somewhere along the line it was decided that there was a need for a full team of trained esper operatives with offensive capabilities – not just field agents, but special ops. Currently that means Crawford and you. Thus the reconstruction of Neunzehn. Most of our Institut-trained talents are not so... outward-looking by nature, though we've placed a number of future possibilities under investigation. Perhaps the Elders have a long-term goal in mind, but I couldn't tell you what it is."

"And that's it? That's fucking it? Strategic outlay?"

"What cause have you given for them to expect complications?" Seraphita said evenly. "From either you or him? It's all ancient history, isn't it?"

Her dark gaze told him nothing. Schuldich broke eye contact first, lifted his sherry to his lips and took a brief swallow. Dark gold burned a way down his throat. The gesture helped center him more than the alcohol itself.

"Are you going to report this conversation?" he asked finally. No answer. He couldn't read her at all. "Why the fuck are you even here, Doctor?"

"An apposite question," Seraphita said. She stubbed the butt of her cigarette out in the ashtray. "All this time, Schuldich, all this time I spent on you... The simple answer would be, would it not, because _you_ requested me as your liaison? It was your perogative as examinee."

"It was yours to refuse."

"True. Very well then; this conversation will not be reported. I did not and do not expect any danger of... instability... from the novel composition of Schwarz-neunzehn, and thus our speculation is fruitless. I tell you this, and you have little choice but to take me at my word. Now do with this situation as you will." She leant back in her chair. "Is there anything else you wish to discuss, Schuldich?"

So this was it. He took a breath.

"_Traumerei._ The heredity project. My cards on the table, Doctor."

An ordinary man or woman would have shown surprise; a more self-possessed one – another trained agent – would have marked a pause, and perhaps smiled at the information thus exchanged. Nothing changed in Seraphita's face at all, and her eyes seemed dark enough to eat light.

"So you know," she said. "I suppose the fact that you never asked or seemed to think about it should have tipped me off. Does it matter?"

Schuldich shook his head from side to side, slowly.

"And yet you ask now." The waiter had materialized by their side, sherry bottle tipped and at the ready. "_Si puede dejarla,_" Seraphita told him.

"You knew her, didn't you." It was not a question, and Seraphita did not answer it as such. She refilled his glass to three-quarters, and then her own. He kept his voice level. "Ladies don't tell their age, do they, Doctor?"

"Perhaps not." She downed her sherry again as if to mark emphasis; Schuldich sipped at his own, watching her over the rim. She had drunk him under the table... once. "I was fifteen," she said finally. "Do the sums if you will. Yes, I knew her."

"From the Institut?"

"Not in the sense you mean. We were sent there at roughly the same time, and kept together for a few weeks. They wanted to run some interference experiments on the raw ability. That was it. We ate together, talked. A completely ordinary girl, pretty at best, with ordinary interests and aspirations regarding family and career – that was what I thought then. Determined in her own way, but trusting. Very kind. No real idea of what it meant for her to be there, no understanding of the circumstances. She never made it through training." Seraphita looked away from him for the first time he could remember, and gazing into the shifting shadows beyond the glass she said, "she broke Control before she even had it, when they took you away from her."

There was a long silence. Schuldich stared into his sherry; the colour of it was warm, lulling. He thought of endless white and the scent of science. _And among men my—_

"And she was the one they chose to carry the bloodline," he noted finally. "A failure."

"She _was_ the bloodline, Schuldich." Seraphita's pack was on the table; she extracted a cigarette neatly with French-manicured nails, dipping the unfiltered end into the candle flame in passing. "They couldn't trace any others, though they tried. Failure or not... the strength was hers. She was the one who got you out of there."

"I thought it was Kessler."

"She made him do it. She had a good grasp on her own capabilities by then; I don't say she was a fool."

"'Persuaded' is too weak a word, I assume."

"Indeed. No man gives his life for another man's child, or loves an empath of his own free will. Forgive my descent into sloganeering." Seraphita dragged on her cigarette. "Besides which, she gave the program its only success after all those years. It couldn't all have been the father's doing, though that hair of yours isn't distaff. Are you going to drink that, Schuldich, or will you sit and watch me poison myself?"

"I'll drink it."

"Do. You worry me." The statement was false, but Schuldich knew better than to take its ilk literally in Seraphita's conversation. He drank, and felt the silence almost companionable.

"Her name," he said finally, before Seraphita could ask. For once the thought had travelled from her loud and clear, and he did not question why. "Her name. There was only a code in the files."

"There's little call for precautions after the breach is made," Seraphita said. "Gisele. Gisele was what she asked me to call her. Is that enough of a keepsake, Schuldich?"

"I suppose," he said. No Control. She would have wept. What a thought that was, tears in the very bleached-bone halls of the Institut; he did not know why it seemed so strange. He had wept too when he was brought there, for the first time he had thought. "Yes... I suppose." He smiled. "It's not so important, really."

Seraphita raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing, only reached for the bottle again. It was infuriating, Schuldich thought, how transparent he was to her sense always when she was opaque to his – except there was no caring in her one way or the other, and that mitigated it somehow. Most of the time. He drank deeply again and watched her, not thinking anything in particular anymore. Not hearing. Even the waiter had disappeared somewhere beyond his restricted range of receptivity. The street behind the glass was empty; nothing outside their circle of candlelight but shadows in the alleys, shadows in the shifting leaves overhead... Still the warmth seeped from him despite the alcohol, and he wanted to sleep. If he let go, this very moment, he'd touch apartment blocks full of dreams—

He set the glass on the table and rose. "Early plane tomorrow, Doctor. I'll be seeing you, hmm? _Auf wie—_"

"No," said Seraphita. "No, I think not." Schuldich paused, then smiled.

"Very well then, Doctor. A goodbye kiss?" He leant over the table. A chaste peck on the cheek that Seraphita did not move to return; he caught a whiff of her discreet perfume, a citrusy, almost masculine scent. It reminded him of being sixteen and alone, waking on a sterilized cot to the appraisal of those dark eyes. "Adieu, Doctor." He tucked the brief under his arm and turned away.

"Wait, Schuldich," she said, and he stopped. But she said nothing more.

"What's—" he began, turning back. His voice failed. Slender gold dangled from Seraphita's fingers, and the glint of candlelight on the wrought metal struck soul-memory before recognition came in words.

_—You had this before, didn't you? On a chain._

_—It broke._

_—I'll buy you another one—_

"You found it," he heard himself say, and his voice sounded even, utterly normal to his own ears. "I... it was hers. Wasn't it."

"Just the pendant. She wore it as a necklace." Burnished links spilled into his palm, and he closed his fist tightly on the warm coil. "Present Number Three. Keepsakes where keepsakes are due, I think. You must have had it most of your life anyway."

"I lost it when I was turned in. I didn't think you were in charge of that operation."

"It wasn't me who found it. Although I had the clasp fixed." And he had to catch his breath for the remembering, the moment when he'd felt the chain being torn from his ankle. It had left a scrape. But it wasn't for that pain that he'd cried out, oh no...

_And none in the jungle knows that I carry this mark._

Bitterness or anticipation? Seraphita would have a word, though she would never feel it. Her lips curved, the line of them almost soft. "Tell Crawford hello for me," she said after a brief silence.

"I'll do that," said Schuldich. "I'll do that, Doctor—" But she'd turned her head to stub out her cigarette, and so he stepped outside the candlelit circle and the door swinging shut behind him muffled the brief music of the chimes, and the street was emptier and stiller of thought than ever. When he looked back at the other end of the block the square of light still wavered under the leafshadows.

* * *

_— Montreal, May 2003_


End file.
